Running Towards a Better Me

Here’s a personal story to inspire you to reach your fitness goals this year.

It’s so hard to start a new habit, isn’t it? It’s even harder to maintain a habit you’ve started and stopped over and over for 20 years. Is there still hope the habit can become a permanent fixture in your life? I’m here to tell you, emphatically yes. Read on to find out why I’m so sure.

I’ve been running in circles my entire adult life.

I first attempted a running lifestyle when I was thin and much younger. I didn’t feel healthy. Much of what ailed me included anxiety about my future, bad sleeping habits, bad diet choices and drinking, stress from working in a fast-food restaurant (which I daresay led to the other health concerns above), a crippling lack of self-confidence, undiagnosed depression, and bad people choices. I was certain running would help me feel better. I pushed myself through several early mornings until life got the better of me and I quit.

This pattern reoccurred often between age 20 to the present. I’ll start running for a while, then I’ll hit a bump in the road — weather, illness, a new job, kids, school — and then I’ll abruptly stop, always telling myself I’ll run again tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes months or years later.

The most successful I’ve ever been at maintaining a running habit was the spring through the summer of 2021. I’m very proud of that series of months. Why? Well, because not only did I lose weight exclusively through running for the first time in my life, but I set a real-world goal and followed through to completion. In the early spring of that year, I signed up for a local 5K. I had never done that before. I followed a training plan similar to this one, which intersperses walking and running during workouts, designed to build up your endurance. The plan broke running up into manageable weekly bites, and I was able to continue without hitting a wall.

I completed the 5K that September 18th (which also happens to be my wedding anniversary). I was so happy with my accomplishments, but also ecstatic to finally see results from my running for the first time in my life. Running became fun. I was able to run for longer (I worked myself up to run for 10 minutes at a time). My stamina in all areas of my life increased. My energy levels were more consistent. Most importantly, I just overall felt better on a daily basis. At 36, I was finally starting to feel healthy and vital.

I’m 38 now. Once again, I let life interfere with my health goals. Shortly after the 5K, I got sick and stopped running. Then, a few months later, I got COVID. By this time, it’s the middle of winter, and I cannot make myself get back outside and run. 2022 has been an especially eventful year that has seen my life change abruptly and has led to new challenges. Last September, during another illness, I began to allow some hard truths to finally sink in.

If I don’t stay active, my body will betray me.

I have gained all the weight back I lost in the warm months of 2021, plus I’m 10 extra pounds heavier than I have ever been in my entire life (even compared to when I was at my heaviest: pregnant with my first daughter). From September through December of 2022, I was constantly sick with something different every month and it took me way longer than it should have to recover. My moods are erratic, and I find it difficult to focus.

I really need my brain right now. I quit my job in September to stay home with my children. One of my children received a diagnosis that makes it terrifying to not have at least one parent at home. My kids have also been on online school since the 2020 school year, and now — since I’m home now — I’m homeschooling them myself. At the same time, I’m developing my writing career — which is another dream/goal I’ve had since adolescence — so I can replace the income I was bringing into the household before I quit. All these things require an immense amount of focus and concentration that I just do not normally possess. I know that exercise helps in this arena.

So around the holidays this past season, I started running again. It’s been mostly cold, so the running has been sporadic. I have a lot of work to do to get back to my old stamina. I can barely run for three minutes at a time before feeling like I’m going to pass out. The point is, I’ve restarted the habit. I’m sure this time I’ve got it in me to maintain the habit.

Why do I think I’ll be successful this time?

In one word: experience. In the past when I tried to start a running routine, the running didn’t change me. I gave up before the running had time to reveal its benefits to my body. In 2021, I had a solid goal and I had loved ones actively supporting me, and those realities encouraged me to not stop. Since I did sustain the habit for longer than I ever had before, I began to see results. I began to lose weight and feel better. The knowledge that running will make me feel better is really all I need.

Not only do I have the emotional maturity now that I didn’t have when I was 20 to enable me to stick to a goal, I have so much more at stake in my life now. I have a family who depends on me and what I’m able to accomplish. I need stamina for the new freelance writing career I’m building. I fully understand now that with maintaining good habits like running, I can better handle life’s road bumps. Giving up is not self care, it’s self-sabotage. I also have the memory of positive running experiences.

And I desperately want that feeling back.

Running is my healthy habit of choice, but any habit that you want to incorporate into your lifestyle because you know it will improve your life is relevant to the inspiration I hope to impart with this article. There are plenty of articles on Medium that give you a list of rules or guidelines to success for any goal. Few of these authors actually meet you where you’re at on your journey to self-improvement. They have reached success and are looking down at you. But I’m right here next to you, beside you, looking you in the eye. We’re at the same place, on the same path. Even though we haven’t reached the finish line, we will get there together.

When you realize your healthy habit is worth the struggle, you will find a way to make it happen. Starting something new is hard — like pushing a boulder that doesn’t want to be moved. However, once you get that boulder rolling, momentum takes over and nothing can stand in its way!

Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment to let me know what you think! To get more from me, grace me with a follow. I also write for The Customs House Museum & Cultural Center. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram as Meggiebeth_Writes.